“My friends were all stoked, but my family didn't understand what I was doing,” says Feldberg. “They didn't know what the game was or how it was played or anything like that. They just didn't fathom that it was real.”
Nine years later, they're starting to warm up to the idea. Feldberg has become one of the top players in the world in the orb-tossing game that goes by a variety of names - disc golf, Frisbee golf or “folf,” for short.
“It's unbelievable,” says Christian Dietrich of the host Garden City Flyers Disc Golf Club and a
co-director of the tournament. “There has never been anybody like Dave at a Montana tournament. It's really exciting to have him make it over.”
Feldberg highlights a field that includes other pros like Corvallis, Ore.'s Nate Sexton, Calgary's Mark Dacik, Monte Koz of Littleton, Colo., and Portland's Melody King as well as a full slate of talent from Montana, Washington and Idaho.
While wet and fragile conditions have Missoula's Pattee Canyon course closed, Blue Mountain is good to go for the event - sanctioned by the Professional Disc Golf Association - where the winner's purse may be around $1,000, Dietrich says.
A “B-tier” tournament on the PDGA tour's Inland Northwest Series, the Zoo Town Open will have a full assortment of age-group and skill-level based competition. The event runs Saturday and Sunday morning with a special nine-hole exhibition for the professionals on Sunday afternoon.
While Feldberg says he doesn't want to jinx himself, most agree that if he brings his A game and can cope with the wooded course enough to fend off the locals, he should win it.
“(He's) unbelievably accurate, consistent and he can throw the disc a country mile,” Dietrich says. “Just like in ball golf, (disc golf) favors consistency and powerful consistency. Dave just very rarely doesn't make the shot he's trying for.”
It's a gift honed through hundreds of hours of practice and one that has earned Feldberg a workable living during his time on tour. A Web site for one of his sponsors lists his 2007 tour earnings at $37,030. He estimates he makes about 30 trips per year, including regular stops in Europe and Japan and - after this weekend - will have played a full round in every state except Alaska, Hawaii and North Dakota.
“Three weeks ago I was hanging around in Copenhagen,” says Feldberg of the pro disc golfer lifestyle. “Hanging around for a week, expenses paid. That's definitely one of the advantages.”
Of the six pro events listed on www.pdga.com that Feldberg has played in this year, he's won three of them and hasn't finished out of the top five. He tied for fifth out of 139 pros at last year's PDGA world championships and he won the U.S. championships in 2005 - cashing in for $11,000.
That victory also earned Feldberg an appearance on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. By that time, his family had begun to believe in the sport. Feldberg says they started to appreciate disc golf the old-fashioned way, after seeing him playing on TV.
“They TiVo-ed it,” Feldberg says. “From that moment on, everybody in my family and their friends, they know all about disc golf now. When I was on Conan O'Brien they had a big party and rented a big screen TV and served hors d'oeuvres.”
For the record, years after he first ditched school for the PDGA, Feldberg went back to college and paid his own way. Now he teaches Frisbee golf classes at the University of Oregon.
Still far from a household name, he says he knows the sport has a long way yet to go. But he also says the disc golf world has already made strides from the late 90s, when he first started touring the country in an RV with a couple of other aspiring professionals.
“A lot of times people still haven't heard of it and they say, ‘What? You disco?' Š ,” Feldberg says. “But I think the majority of people now have heard of it. They might not know exactly what is, but they've heard of it. I think we're getting there.”
Sports writer Chad Dundas can be reached at 523-5361 or at chad.dundas@missoulian.com.
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